


A Different Ascension

by notheryet



Category: Mage: The Ascension
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27154147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notheryet/pseuds/notheryet
Summary: Short story about characters from my Mage: The Ascension campaign.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Kudos: 1





	A Different Ascension

Nasrin stifled a squeal as Jabril jabbed a needle into her arm, throwing the back of her hand to her mouth and screwing her eyes shut. Searing heat pulsed through her veins as she felt her flesh rearranging itself, replicating tissues and layering them over the bullet hole left by a Technocracy goon.

“I’m sorry I can’t do anything about the pain,” Jabril murmured, grasping Nasrin’s hand gently.

Nasrin steadied her breath. “It’s alright. It’s well-deserved anyway. I shouldn’t have been so reckless.”

“Hm.” Jabril glanced at her arm, focusing her magick and guiding its course through Nasrin’s Pattern. With a lack of care, or an abundance of Paradox, she could easily deviate from Nasrin’s original form in one way or another—or even enhance it, if she wanted to. She doubted that the Adeptus would mind, but the idea still bothered her for some reason. Jabril had detached almost all sense of worth from her own body, seeing as she had acquired and discarded so many copies of it—not to mention the fact that it no longer housed her soul. But Nasrin was a source of stability and comfort in her life, and although she could probably enhance her physical form, Jabril felt that she might somehow end up tainting her.

An irrational thought, she realized, and a sentimental one at that. Emotions were an unusual concept to her; it was like hearing a glass fall in the other room without being able to see it. She could perceive her own feelings, but they were intangible and distant. Jabril had researched what she could about the nature of Nephandi following her sudden and unplanned Descent into the caul. Hermetic accounts almost universally depicted them as monstrous sociopaths with no regard for human life, and she had to admit that for the most part she probably fit that description. She often tried to force herself to feel compassion and warmth for other people. When she had promised Mister Farooq that she would become a good person, she truly did her best to follow through—giving homeless people blankets, walking old ladies across the street. In the end, though, she was only play-acting at humanity. Her actions weren’t based on an altruistic urge. She had simply been trying to fill up the emptiness inside her, futile as it may have been.

But when it came to Nasrin, it was as if everything was turned upside down again.

When Nasrin had promised to find a way to save her, Jabril knew that she was doing what she always did—trying to prove herself to the world, to achieve something impossible to show that she was worthy of her mother’s legacy. It was a childish thing to believe. But her audacity, her precociousness, and her sheer conviction had stirred something deep inside Jabril. Nasrin had… hope. A pathetic and childish hope, yes, but backed up by genuine talent and a great deal of stubbornness. And more than that, her audaciousness meant she had placed her faith in someone whom everyone—even Jabril’s own sister—believed would be better off destroyed. So despite everything, Jabril found herself believing in Nasrin too. Since then, she had already begun to display at least gestures towards empathy (even if it was only fixated on Nasrin and her associates). Nasrin would probably be able to contribute greatly to the Order’s scholarship on the Nephandi with this very unique case study.

“Jabril,” she heard Nasrin say. Jabril, realizing she had been lost in her own thoughts, quickly gathered herself and pulled the needle from Nasrin’s now smooth, unbroken flesh.

“Sorry, Naz,” she said. Nasrin rolled her eyes at the casual nickname, but Jabril knew that Nasrin would excuse it from her, unlike everyone else. It was a very unique privilege.

“Lost my concentration for a minute. I was just thinking about everything. I never thought I’d be let back into the chantry, especially not since—well, you know.”

Nasrin huffed. “Honestly, I can’t believe we had to pretend you were my prisoner. Lady Waterstone should have learned to trust my judgment by now.”

“No offense, but I’m pretty sure the only times a Nephandus has been in an Order chantry was for the purpose of killing a bunch of people.”

“Well, I know you wouldn’t.”

“Yeah. I’ve thought about it, though. Especially with my sister. I mean, my Essence is oriented towards the obliteration of all of existence, so.”

Nasrin scratched her head. “...Right. I forget about that sometimes.”

Jabril observed a twinge of guilt in herself and pondered how to express it. “I… wish that I could be different for you.” She felt as though she should be wringing her hands nervously, but when she tried it ended up more like mechanically shuffling her palms.

Nasrin slipped off of the operating table they had been using in the chantry’s medical room, rolling the sleeve of her carmine Oxford shirt back up to her wrist. She placed a hand on Jabril’s shoulder. “Trust me, my love…” She smiled at the novel phrase. “I don’t want anyone but you. Even if you do want to rip me to shreds, there’s nobody else I’d rather have doing it.”

Nasrin reached out and clasped Jabril’s cheek, lips pursed thoughtfully. “But there’s still time for you yet. We’re so close to finding a solution. I can feel it.”

“You really think?” Jabril scuffed the floor with her shoe. “There’re no records of any Nephandus ever being turned back, you know…”

“And there’s no records of a time-traveling automaton with a nuclear laser arm, either.” Nasrin chuckled. “Mages flirt with the impossible every moment of our lives. But if the Summer Realm does prove to be a false lead, then…” Nasrin kissed Jabril tenderly on the nose, shifting to grab her hands and draw them in towards Nasrin’s chest. “I’ll let you obliterate me if it makes you feel whole. It’s only a fair repayment, seeing as I immolated you the first time we met.”

“I got better…” Jabril sighed. “You can’t just say things like that, Naz. You’ll make me think you’re being serious.”

“I am being serious!” Nasrin pouted. “I thought it was romantic…”

“Very,” Jabril drawled. “But you can’t just act as if my nature is… it’s not just a personality defect. It’s a cancer on the world, and right now I’m in a very precarious balance, and I feel like any day I could tip over, and if I ended up hurting you, then…” Jabril exhaled. “The next thing I would probably do is annihilate myself.”

A look passed across Nasrin’s face. Jabril tried to reach into her bank of memories from her mortal existence to identify what it was, but she drew a blank. Getting your soul torn apart and reconstructed by the Caul had many downsides, but one of the more mundane ones was the loss of ability to read other people’s emotions.

“I apologize,” Nasrin said finally. “I didn’t mean to—”

Jabril did the only thing she could think of. She leaned forward and pecked Nasrin on the lips. She seemed shocked, and Jabril realized she had never initiated a kiss with her before.  


“I don’t want to die.” The words felt strange in Jabril’s mouth, and she blinked slowly, trying to reach for words that she didn’t fully understand. “I don’t know what I want, but I don’t think I could stand to die because it would take me to a place where you won’t there. That’s… that’s the best I can manage for now.”

Nasrin smiled. “I understand.” She returned with a kiss of her own, her hot breath flushing through Jabril’s throat. As Jabril pressed back, Nasrin’s hand twitched slightly, knocking a vial of medicine off of a shelf that shattered on the floor. Jabril didn’t react in the slightest, laying into Nasrin even more insistently.

“Okay, okay,” Nasrin said, pushing Jabril off of her gently. “I like it when you take charge, but some of us actually need to breathe.”

“You like it when I take charge?” Jabril meant the question with complete sincerity, but Nasrin blushed all the same.

“That’s a conversation for another time.” Nasrin pulled her gloves out of her waistcoat, pulling them onto her fingers with a sharp, practiced movement. “We’d better let Edgar know that I haven’t died. You coming?” Nasrin adjusted her braid, then grabbed her suit jacket off the back of a chair and slung it over her shoulder, looking back at Jabril with a sly expression. Despite her difficulties with empathy, Jabril could recognize when Nasrin was being sweet and earnest, and when she was putting up an exterior of bravado to regain her composure. It was… amusing.  


“Of course. I’ll need to give this to him, as well…” Jabril gestured towards the severed fingers she had hastily stored in a glass jar, still dripping blood. Nasrin glanced at them, grimacing in revulsion.

“ _To kesafat_ … You really are something, you know that?”

“I do.” Jabril looked at her thoughtfully. “Thanks to you… I really do.”


End file.
